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Monthly Archives: April 2015

Like to be up for chatter and choices: Wednesday Info-Gathering and Rights-Asserting Protest at the Metro or Possibly Starbucks…The Baltimore Uprising–Its Implications for Us in Santa Cruz…Permit Parking Around the Homeless (Lack of ) Services Center–Being Pals with the Prejudiced Goes Sour…The Homeless Dumping Issue and Neal Coonerty…Return of the Prodigal Rabbi–Phil Posner Back in Town with “Camp of Last Resort”…and, of course, more.

HUFF legions will gather under cloudy skies, perhaps seeking shelter indoors in the catacombs of the Sub Rosa Cafe at 703 Pacific at the usual 11 AM time.

Likely to be on the agenda: Updates on the Stay-Away Law Suit court hearing on Monday morning, Monday’s Public Safety Committee, Tuesday’s Supervisor’s “Build a Fence Around the Back of the Jail” vote, Tuesday’s Downtown Accountability Project vote, Prospects for a restored Alliance of activists re: police abuse and militarization, mixing it up with the Metro Security thugs…and whatever comes our way. Along with the traditional coffee and crunchables.

Agenda-likely items: Next steps in the Small Claims Court Sleep Deprivation Saga; LibraryWatch, ShelterWatch, or CourtWatch–which way to go?; Right 2 Rest Updates and Support Demo; Keeping Up the Pressure on Police Violence Locally; Parks and Rec Stat Gathering and Crunching…with a Copwatch and Homeless Zine meet also slated for 1 PM after the HUFFmeet. The usual coffee and crunchables are likely to be available.

A group of California towns is fighting for their right to criminalize homelessness as state lawmakers weigh new protections for the destitute on Tuesday.
The League of California Cities (LCC) is opposing a new statewide “Right to Rest” bill protecting homeless people’s right to sleep and eat in public. The bill would pre-empt local ordinances that impose fines and jail terms for homeless people over their use of public spaces for non-criminal activity. Such local efforts to make homelessness illegal have cropped up all around the country in recent years, even as homelessness advocates have piled up evidence that it is far cheaper to provide permanent housing to the homeless than it is to lock them up.
The “Right to Rest” law, which gets its first hearing before a Senate committee on Tuesday afternoon, is inspired by a rapid uptick in law enforcement targeting of the unsheltered and a new understanding of how many California towns have laws that criminalize homeless people’s day-to-day activities. Law students from Berkeley found more than 500 separate anti-homeless laws in a review of just 58 cities’ codes, and concluded that California cities are twice as likely as other American towns to ban homeless people from sleeping in their cars.

Their report found that arrests for vagrancy offenses have surged as arrests for disorderly conduct slipped, “suggesting that homeless people are being punished for their status, not their behavior.” That attitude was on full display in San Rafael, CA, earlier this year when Mayor Gary Phillips closed a city park favored by the homeless because “I want to break the cycle so this is not a place for them to hang out.” The bill up for a hearing Tuesday is broadly written, but intended to “end the criminalization of the non-criminal activities of life exercised by homeless people” in public spaces. Its author notes federal findings that laws like the ones LCC is working to defend are ineffective at protecting the public interest and even exacerbate homelessness by adding criminal records and institutionalization to an already long list of challenges. The LCC’s legislative letter against the bill argues that it would undermine the basic definition of property rights that “are the foundation of our social order,” and grant special rights to anyone defined as homeless. The group has asked member towns to send letters of opposition to the senator sponsoring the bill.
“Right to Rest” is just one piece of homelessness legislation facing the state this session, and looking at it in connection with the others makes the LCC’s position harder to understand. Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins (D) has proposed a sweeping overhaul of the state’s financing system for affordable housing that would inject hundreds of millions of dollars into construction and upkeep of buildings that could keep the working poor off the streets.
The LCC supports those Atkins bills, and claims that its opposition to “Right to Rest” is consistent with that affordable housing stance. LCC spokeswoman Eva Spiegel told ThinkProgress that the group supports Atkins’ ideas because they correspond with a national consensus “that the key to helping the homeless get back on their feet is through a combination of housing and supportive services.”
But the criminalization law “creates another excuse for not making the commitment to house and serve the homeless,” Spiegel said. Spiegel declined to clarify exactly how decriminalizing homelessness would distract from the holistic efforts that LCC supports.
It isn’t an obvious connection. Criminalizing homeless people’s sleeping habits, minimal property holdings, and access to fresh food doesn’t do anything to facilitate their getting into permanent supportive housing. Cities that have committed to the criminalization path have sometimes found themselves on the wrong end of the courts, as in the case of Fort Lauderdale, FL and Dallas, TX.
If the goal is to devote more resources to housing and counseling solutions that are proven to be effective, criminalizing people’s behavior when they don’t have access to a house may actively get in the way. One study has found that it costs over $30,000 per year in law enforcement and health care expenses to leave a homeless person on the street and criminalize her behavior, but barely $10,000 a year to put him into a permanent housing unit.

California cities fight homeless rights bill

League of California Cities opposition to Right to Rest Act latest in long history of classist edicts, rights groups say

An influential league of California cities is opposing a bill that would allow people to rest in public areas — a position that homeless activists argue is consistent with the group’s history of supporting abuses against marginalized groups.
The Right to Rest bill, which moves to a state Senate hearing on April 7, would allow homeless individuals to sit, stand, eat or rest without it being a criminal offense.
Municipal laws in California targeting these behaviors have skyrocketed in past years, a recent report showed, with researchers identifying over 500 restrictions in California municipalities — nearly nine laws per city, on average.
The League of California Cities, an association of California city officials that work to influence policy decisions, drafted a petition last week against the bill, arguing that it doesn’t provide a solution to homelessness and would “undermine the ability of all others to access clean and non-threatening public spaces.”
For rights advocates, that’s tantamount to calling the homeless dirty and threatening.
The League “hides or puts a veil over the race and class issues that are really behind this … but it always seeps through,” said Paul Boden, executive director of the Western Regional Advocacy Project (WRAP).
“Bottom line,” Boden said, the League is saying, “‘We don’t want to see these people, and we want to preserve our authority to pass and enforce these laws, so if too many come around to make us uncomfortable, we can use these laws to get rid of them.’”
The homeless are not the first marginalized group targeted by the League in its over 100-year history, according to documents provided by the Western Center on Law and Poverty (WCLP), an organization that works on the behalf of low-income Californians.
Past League targets for the removal from public space or even entire municipalities include Chinese, Japanese and African Americans, as well as “any person who is diseased, maimed, mutilated, or in any way deformed so as to be an unsightly or disgusting object,” according to the documents.
To counteract the League of California Cities’ opposition to the bill, WRAP, WCLP and other social justice groups sent a letter to Jim Beall, chairman of the California Transportation and Housing Committee, who will oversee this week’s hearing on the bill. In it, the advocacy groups placed the group’s resistance to the Right to Rest bill into a long history of antipathy toward the downtrodden.
“The League of California Cities has an unfortunate history of being on the wrong side of civil and human rights history in some critical times in our past and their opposition to SB 608 continues this historical pattern,” the letter said.
The League has supported sundown towns, Jim Crow laws, Chinese exclusion and Japanese internment, the letter added.Opposition to the bill by the League “falls on the same kinds of scare tactics used throughout the last century to ban certain ‘undesirables’ who were deemed to be an ‘economic blight’ or danger on the street,” the letter said.
The League rejected allegations that its opposition to the bill was based on an effort to discriminate against a certain group of people. Its communications director, Eva Spiegel, emailed Al Jazeera that the League has a “longstanding commitment to human rights and inclusivity,” that is reflected in its racially and politically diverse board.
“We reject any effort to falsely characterize the league’s opposition to SB 608 as reflective of an organizational philosophy to discriminate against certain groups,” Spiegel said. “This is completely inaccurate and fails to appropriately reflect the comments in our letter.”
Spiegel said the League opposes the bill because it “does nothing to help the homeless get off the streets” and that the solution is to provide affordable housing. She cited California’s 2011 removal of over $1 billion per year in affordable housing. She said that has “had a devastating and well-documented effect of the ability of cities, non-profits, and others to build this much needed housing.”
Homeless advocates agree that cuts to funding for affordable housing are largely to blame for the modern crisis of homelessness, but they disagree that the bill would accomplish “nothing” in getting people of the streets.
Even if there was affordable housing available, having a criminal record makes it more difficult for homeless individuals to find employment and housing. And aggressive policing pushes the homeless out of city centers, farther from the services intended to help them.
Advocates told Al Jazeera that the League’s position on the bill is based on a desire to remove the homeless from public space in the interest of promoting business.
The League’s petition said that a law asserting the rights of people to rest and carry out life-sustaining behaviors in public areas without criminalization would “create social disorder,” adding that the bill “creates a special set of exemptions and privileges for one group of people.”
Advocates said the bill asserts the rights of every Californian to rest, sleep, share food and pray in public.
Boden said that those who argue the bills would create a special exemption for the homeless overlook the discriminatory manner in which those laws are policed.
“This bill says … if you’re forced to sleep outside that doesn’t mean you’re committing a crime — it means we’re having a housing crisis,” Boden added.
As part of the movement for homeless rights that has brought together over 170 social justice groups, similar bills aimed at protecting the right to sit, stand, eat or rest in public have been introduced in state legislatures in Colorado, Oregon and Hawaii.
All of the bills are facing similar opposition by municipalities and business district improvement groups, Boden said.

California eyes Right to Rest Act to stem criminalization of homeless

State becomes the fourth to consider legislation enshrining right to basic acts of survival in public places

Homeless America: ‘Everyone should be able to pee for free with dignity’

UN says 2.5 billion lack toilets globally, and activists say many homeless in the US struggle to find restrooms

HUFF toddles on looking over the latest attack on Medical Marijuana and its impact on low-income folks here, surveys the Right 2 Rest scene in Sacramento after today’s protest and Senate Housing and Transportation Committee vote, scopes out a Thursday Back-to-the-Library Cafe HUFF at 9:30 AM 4-9, considers Armory closing on or around the 15th, and considers new strategies for an independent campaign against police militarization re: the homeless. Report on the Monterey sit-lie protests, Berkeley’s Ambassador-Host homeless beating, and more! All with coffee and crunchables.

NOTE BY NORSE: HUFF (Homeless United for Friendship & Freedom) has endorsed the Right to Rest law currently up for a vote tomorrow in the state Senate Transportation and Housing Committee. The Bill can be viewed at http://wraphome.org/work/civil-rights-campaign along with info on campaigns in Colorado and Oregon. Protesters will be lobbying the Senate committee tomorrow in Sacramento.
HUFF members have asked Santa Cruz City Councilmember Micah Posner to sponsor a local Right to Rest law, which he’s asked for more info on. Meanwhile Parks and Recreation and SCPD continue to ticket at a merry pace around “illegal” sleeping (i.e. outside at night) and being in a park after dark. The only walk-in emergency shelter in Santa Cruz will close in mid-April. The Homeless (Lack of) Services Center [HLOSC] still fails to give each person that signs up on the Waiting List for the Pall Lee loft and/or the River St. mini-Shelter a copy of their accepted application, indicating they are on the list and so exempt from camping citations under MC 6.36.055. Reports of prison-like conditions at the HLOSC with the new “security fencing” and “ID card” systems are becoming more regular.
On the positive side, there has been no reports yet of “stay-away” orders being given by cops, after an infraction ticket, for more than a day. On the negative side, virtually all infractions given out to Parks and Rec in the last few months have been given to apparently homeless people for non-crime crimes (as mentioned above) and regular stay-away-for-a-day orders with each citation.
Some of the audio [very choppy because of broadcast problems] from last Tuesday’s “Big John” watch, involving discussion of First Alarm Security Guared harassment of homeless people around the Public Library was played last night on Free Radio Santa Cruz at http://radiolibre.org/brb/brb150405.mp3 [2 hours and 20 minutes into the audio file]. I hope to rebroadcast and repost a more audible and coherent version in the near future. Tomorrow’s planned follow-up action in front of the main Public Library in Santa Cruz at 9:30 AM may be cancelled for rain.
HUFF will be meeting Wednesday–with items on the agenda including demands that police abandon selective enforcement of the “nuisance” ordinances against the homeless, suspend or eliminate all use of tasers, shoot-to-kill directives, choke holds, CS gas, and other abusive practices. Reliable reports that cops confronted two Food Not Bombs activists with drawn guns at a private home in what seemed another example of “normal” over-reaction by police. The SCPD may feel empowered by hubbub the SCPD and supporters continue to exploit around the now two-year old deaths of homeless-hostile cops Loren Butchie Baker and Elizabeth Butler. A complassant City Council which recently voted down an attempt to return the BEARCAT armored personnel carrier “rescue” vehicle. The City Council Public Safety Committee meeting has declined to hold hearings on the verified stats showing class profiling by police especially in the downtown and park areas as well as race profiling by Officer Bradly Barnett.

Rebuttal to League of California Cities – Lies!!!

Hi All

Just to give everyone an idea of what the kind of bullshit we can expect tomorrow – Letter from League of Cities and our response

Homelessness Is Extensive and Increasing

Homelessness is the most brutal and severe face of poverty, experienced daily by137,000 individuals in California.1 This represents 22% of the nation’s homeless population. Inrecentyears, there have been increases in the numbers people experiencing homelessness.

Homelessness not only has grave human consequences, it also creates challenges for local governments,bothruralandurban.Accordingtoa2011reportbytheU.S.ConferenceofMayors, mostcitiescontinuedtoseeincreasesinhomelessnessdespitetherecoveringeconomyandreport thatpeopleexperiencinghomelessnessweredifficulttoserve.2 Thereportfoundthat:

·Among households with and without children, unemployment led the list of causesofhomelessness cited by city officials. This was followed by lack of affordable housing.

·Because no beds are available for them, emergency shelters in two thirds of the survey citiesmust turn away homeless families.

Buthomelessnessisnotonlyaproblemthatexistsinurbancommunities.Thoughhomelessnessis more difficult to measure in rural communities, it does exist and the barriers to escaping

homelessness can be even more pronounced for rural residents.3 According to a report by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, 41 percent of people who are homeless live in smaller towns or cities, including rural areas.4 Nationally, approximately 10% of homeless services clients live in rural areas, and 20% are in suburban areas.5 These data exclude people who did not or could not access targeted homeless assistance services because they live in rural areas. Homeless shelters are virtually nonexistent in rural communities and most health and socialservices accessible to indigent persons are located in areas with larger and denser populations.

Families with children have been one of the fastest growing groups of homelesspeople, representing over 40% of the nation’s homeless in 2009 according to the National Coalition for theHomeless. In California, child homelessness is high. The National Center on FamilyHomelessness has given California a rank of 49th worst in the number of homeless children and 48th worst in the percentageofchildrenwhoarehomeless.6 AccordingtodatacollectedbytheMcKinney-Vento Educational Programs more than 527,000 California children experience homelessness last year in California. Of the 2,200,000 children living in poverty in California, thirteen percent are homeless.7Itshouldcomeasnosurprisethathomelessnessisincreasingamongfamilieswithchildren,as poverty among families with children is also on the rise.According to the Public Policy Institute of California, afterreachinga low of about 16%in 2001, the child poverty ratein California has been trending upward with nearly 1 in 4 children living in poverty in California (23.2%) in 2010.8

In a report released by UC Berkeley School of Law, the large majority of homeless Californians resideincommunitieswhereitisnowillegaltorestinpublic.9 Withnoprivateplacetorest,these arelawswhichpeoplewhoarehomelesswillinevitablybreak.Restisanecessityoflifewhichno person,housedor unhoused,canavoid,andwhileit isnot acriminalact,agrowingnumber of municipal laws allow for a citation and imprisonment if someone is found to be resting. QualitativeresearchandtestimonycompiledbyWesternRegional Advocacy Project has found that people who are cited, fined and arrested for the “offense” of resting are less likely to be able to securehousing,andthereforemorelikelytoremainhomeless.UCLAlawprofessorGaryBlasihas demonstratedthatthesetypesofordinancesdonotreducecrime,andmayviolaterightsofthose targeted with the ordinances.10

7 Education for Homeless Children and Youth Program, Title VII-B of the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act as Amendedby the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, Analysis of 2005–2006 Federal Data Collection and Three-Year Comparison, National Center forHomeless Education, June 2007. Number of children includes the estimated number of children ages 0–5 who are not yet enrolled inschool. American Community Survey. (2006).

Homelessness Has Dire Human Consequences

The consequences of poverty for people who lack housing are significant. Homeless families are twiceaslikelyasmiddle-incomefamiliestoreportthattheirchildrenhavemoderateorsevere healthproblemssuchasasthma,dentalproblems,andemotionaldifficulties.11Manyofthese families and children have experienced trauma prior to becoming homeless, and homelessness can exacerbate the consequences of trauma or re-traumatize a child.12 Homeless children are sick four timesasoftenasmiddleclasschildrenandhavehighratesofacuteandchronicillnesses.In addition they suffer from emotional or behavioral problems that interfere with learning atalmost threetimestherateofotherchildren.Homelesschildrenbetween6and17yearsstrugglewith high rates of mental health problems with 47% experiencing anxiety, depression, or withdrawal, as compared to 18% of other school-age children. Homeless children get sick twice as often as other children.13

The health consequences of homelessness are not limited to children. On average, homeless adults have8to9concurrentmedicalillnesses,commonlysufferingfromskinconditions,respiratory infections, tooth decay, foot problems, vision disturbances, and trauma. Chronic diseases, suchas hypertension, diabetes, and asthma, are prevalent among people without homes and are more difficult to manage. Preventive tests are underutilized because of time and funding constraints and because patients tend to present with acute care needs that require immediate attention.

The human experience of homelessness is profound.Whether a child, adult or elder, the lack of privacy and social isolation experienced by people with no home can lead to significant bouts of depression and have long-lasting impacts on self-worth and emotional wellbeing. Theprevalence ofhomelessnessinthe21stcenturyisaresultofaninexcusablefailureofoureconomicand politicalsystemthathasnotonlyledtoviolationsofinternationallyrecognizedhumanrights14, but also impacted the public health of entire communities.15

United Nations Finds California’s Approach to Homelessness in Violation of Human Rights Law In recent outreach conducted by the Western Regional Advocacy Project of over 850 homeless people in 13 cities, 82 percent said they were harassed, cited or arrested for sleeping, and 77 percent for loitering. Thisincreasing penalcode aggression towardshomeless people mirrorsa steadydeclineinhousingstockandfundingforaffordablehousing.Ina2011visitfromaUnited Nations Special Rapporteurthe cruel and degrading conditions faced by homeless persons withoutaccesstoadequatesanitationwerecitedandaletterwassenttoSacramentoMayorKevin Johnsonwhichwarnedthatthecityisviolatingthehumanrightsofhomelesspersons.16

Of her visit, she said “I was especially shocked by what I saw in Sacramento, California, where the citydecidedtoshutdownortorestricttheopeninghoursofpublicrestrooms,forcinghomeless people to improvise other types of solutions to be able to exercise the right to sanitation.Open

defecation, open urinationhave been criminalized [sic]. So what happens is that someone can be criminalized just because he/she does not have a place to do his physiological needs.”

Number One Cause of Homelessness – Lack of Affordable Housing

The following facts documenting the decline in affordable housing stock that hasdirectly correlated with the increase in homelessness, included in the Western Regional Advocacy Project report Without Housing:17

·Between 1978 and 1983, HUD budget authority shrank from $83 billion to little more than $18billion in 2004 constant dollars, and since then has never been more than $32 billion except forin 2009 and 2010 because of Recovery Actfunding.

·HUD Funding for new public housing units has been zero since 1996. Meanwhile, since 1995,360,000 housing units have been lost. HUD estimates that approximately 100,000 units are soldor destroyed each year.

·Since 1995, 360,000 project-based units of Section 8 housing have been lost and another 900,000 of these units have contract set to expire before 2014, accounting for the long waitlists for housing assistance. As a result, current funding for the voucher program meets the needs of only one-quarter of homelessfamilies.

·From 1976-1985, a yearly average of almost 31,000 new Section 515 rural affordablehousingunits were built, from 1986-2005, the average yearly production was 8170, a 74 percent reduction and in 2011 only 763 units were built.

Ontopofthelossofpublichousing,affordablehousingconstruction and Section 8 vouchers, rental markets have the lowest vacancy rates in a decade causing rental costs to remain high throughout the recession’s slow recovery.18

Simplyput,weknowthesolutiontohomelessnessanditisnotcitationsorjailtime.Acitationfor sleeping or standing on the street, instead, creates a criminal record and outstanding fees that contribute to a person’s inability to establish financial solvency and good credit necessary to secure

SB 608 establishes that a person shall not be cited, arrested or harassed for resting in a public space that is open to the public, regardless of their housing status.20 SB 608 defines rest as, “the state of not moving, holding certain postures that include, but are not limited to, sitting, standing,leaning, kneeling, squatting, sleeping, or lying.” SB 608 also establishes that a person without a home shall have an equal right to move freely, eat, have personal property, solicit donations, be legally self- employed, practice religion, share food, or occupy a vehicle that is legally parked in a public place without citation, arrest or harassment.

We know that criminal sanctions for resting do not work, for businesses or for homelesspeople.21Thereareexamplesoflocalitiesusingeffectivesolutions,likeAlamedaCountyemployeeswho had a number of homeless people living outside the County building, and made a targeted effort to get those people housing subsidies, moving them safely off the streets. We need this conversationatthestatewidelevel,somoreofthesuccessfulstrategiescanbeshared,andthe counterproductive ones avoided.

SB 608’s Protections for Homeless People Will Create Significant Savings

Thecurrentcostofenforcinglocallawsthatresultinthecitationandarrestofpeoplewhoare resting in public spaces in California costs these municipal governmentshundreds of millions of dollars. It includes the cost of law enforcement, jail, and court costs, 22 as well as the human cost of homelesspeoplebeingdeprivedoflibertyandpunishedfornothavinghomesinwhichtorest. The cost of housing homeless people is less than the cost of jailing them, 23 so there are opportunity costs as well: Rather than housing people, enforcement of resting laws creates criminal records that can bar homeless people from housing, jobs, and treatment.24 The savings wouldbe significant. California spends $849,396.44 per night on jailing homeless people, or $310,029,700 annually.25 Of the 1,388 respondents in a recent survey of people who are homeless, 78% had been cited for sitting or lying down,26 so the scope of enforcement is not small. SB 608 would stop cities from counterproductively enforcing laws against resting in public.

21 Several studies have found that sit/lie laws do not help businesses and make it harder for homeless people to get housing and jobs: City Hall Fellows, Implementation, Enforcement and Impact: San Francisco’s Sit/Lie Ordinance One Year Later (2012); Berkeley Law Policy Advocacy Clinic,Does Sit-Lie Work: Will Berkeley’s “Measure S” Increase Economic Activity and Improve Services to Homeless People?(2012).

SB 608 Deserves Your Support

The human indignity of homelessness impacts over hundreds of thousands of Californians and their communities, but it doesn’t have to. SB 608 will not reduce the number of people whoare homeless,butitwillprotectpeoplelivingonthestreetfromthecitationsandimprisonmentthat willonlyworsentheirconditionandopportunitiestoescapehomelessness.SB608invitesusallto seekreal,lastingandhumaneresponsestohomelessness.27Thecostsforpreventingtheviolation ofpeople’sbasichumanrightsmustbeweighedagainstthecosts,bothfiscalandqualitative,of notdoingso. Wearegratefulforyourconsiderationandurge your ‘Aye’ vote forSB608.

Sincerely,

JessicaBartholow Paul Boden

Western Center on Law & Poverty Western Regional Advocacy Project

Judith Larson Elisa Della-Piana

JERICHO Neighborhood Justice Clinic EBCLC

Members of the Senate Committee on Transportation and Housing Honorable Kevin de León, President pro Tempore of the State Senate

HUFF agenda candidates: Follow-Up on the BigJohnWatch at the Library; Lobbying and Updates on the Right to Rest Law coming up for Transportation Committee Hearing; Creating a Santa Cruz R2R law; Supporting the First Friday Sitting Ban Protest in Monterey; Non-Report from Berkeley’s People’s Park; …and too much other stuff–as usual. We supply the coffee; you supply the frenzy.